Ideally
Ideally
Ideally, the insights platform that helps grow great ideas. Our second joint venture with TRA Labs, following Tracksuit.
The Context
Ideally came to us as a minimum viable product concept for customer research, without a brand or even a decided name. The tool could empower people to bring customer voice directly into their concept development, at a much more affordable price, with results in 48 hours. We worked with our partners at TRA Labs, founder CEO James Donald and co-founder Joshua Nu'u-Steele to define the product direction, positioning and capital strategy, and to create the brand identity and first website that carried the idea to market.
The Problem
Most things made for people are made without people in the process. Customer testing has traditionally been too expensive, too slow and too defensive: a hurdle ideas have to clear rather than a way to make them better. Research gets used to kill ideas, not grow them, so people are scared to put ideas in front of customers, err toward conservatism, and only test at the end, seeking approval for something already built. Customers end up absent from the creative process, and ideas arrive smaller, battered and compromised before any of them get a look in. We believed that going to customers often, in ways that look for possibility and growth, leads to better ideas, better products and better results.
The Idea
Ideally's goal is to make customer testing easier, faster, more accessible and more impactful for the development of ideas. The product's mix of AI and human smarts lets users spot patterns and see where ideas can grow, asking the kind of qualitative, open-ended questions you'd ask a focus group of six to a statistically robust survey of 400: focus-group golden insights at survey scale. The brand idea is to grow great ideas with your customers. Where competitors are where ideas go to die, Ideally is where they're nurtured and grown.
We wanted to avoid both research clichés and the emerging AI clichés of moody, dark, hyper-real. Instead we looked to the places in culture that lift ideas up and celebrate them: art galleries, museums and places of learning. Ideally would be an Institute of Ideas, where ideas are discussed, celebrated and elevated.
We wanted to avoid both research clichés and the emerging AI clichés of moody, dark, hyper-real. Instead we looked to the places in culture that lift ideas up and celebrate them: art galleries, museums and places of learning. Ideally would be an Institute of Ideas, where ideas are discussed, celebrated and elevated.
The Identity
The Institute of Ideas guided the visual identity. Museums and galleries are places like Ideally, in that they are where ideas are lifted up, discussed and advanced. They have distinct identities that also work as flexible frameworks for content outside their control, exactly what Ideally needed as a platform framing customer ideas and imagery. The graphic language is built off a generative eye, referencing the i in ideas and, quite literally, human insights: a visual metaphor for exploring ideas and searching for possibility. Overlapping venn-like shapes speak to elements coming together to create new things, new ideas generated from existing thoughts and insights, constantly learning and growing. The result is a rich, extensive language that lets Ideally tell many stories and turn up in social spaces and reports in distinctive, engaging ways.
The Outcome
The goal of building a brand-led company from day one has been met. Ideally raised $2 million just months after launch, and soon reached millions in annualised revenue with more than 100 customers, including companies like Asahi and ASB. It's one of the fastest growing startups in Australasia, attracting world-class talent, partners and customers, with the brand serving as a north star for hiring, marketing and product development. The progress has continued, with a Series A in 2026 valuing the company at over $100 million.
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We take on select projects, working with companies who are inventing or reinventing. If there’s a project you’d like to talk to us about, please get in touch.
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